As Long As He Needs Me
by Lala Kate
Summary: What should have been a routine robbery turns into so much more for Bandit Regina.
1. Chapter 1

She ducks in the shadows, clutching what little she'd managed to take from the Sherriff, nearly screaming as something small and four legged scrambles over her feet. She bites her lip to keep from crying out as the rodent's silhouette becomes visible, knowing she'd much prefer to stare down a bear or battle an ogre than deal with a well-fed rat.

God. She hates they city. Give her a cave dwelling in the forest any day.

A moan from behind her startles her, and she jumps on her haunches, squinting to make out the sound source among the piles of waste she's been avoiding. Then there's a cough—one that doesn't sound good at all—one that is undoubtedly human and probably not long for this world. Her legs are frozen, and she debates on whether she should check on the person in trouble or simply keep running to ensure her own safety. After all, helping the sick isn't something a bandit wanted by the queen herself has time for in the grand scheme of things.

But then there's a sniffle and a cry. Dear God—a child. Regina cannot turn her back on a child.

Damn it.

She turns and hops over what trash she can see, breathing a prayer that the rats will even find the smell too revolting to bother her any further when she nearly falls over a small child who can't be more than four year old, one whose haunted dark eyes stare up at her in what light the moon affords.

"Can you help my mama?"

Another cough racks through the person on the ground—a woman, a mother, it would seem, her long, dark hair matted to her face, her cheekbones nearly protruding through her skin as silver light illuminates her face. Her child is thin, but not like this—not skeletal, and Regina reasons that this woman has been feeding her son to her own expense as disease siphoned away what little strength she had remaining.

"I don't know," Regina answers honestly, and the woman sends her a small, resigned smile, shaking her head in response.

"You can't. No one can, believe me."

Her tone is gravelly and rough, and she coughs again, making Regina draw the boy back towards her instinctively. He fights being pulled away from his mother, trying to get back to the sick woman, sobbing in the dark alley that is the closest thing to hell Regina hopes she ever sees.

"Can I summon a doctor?" Regina questions, thinking through her options, knowing seeking a physician's help could easily get her captured. But the boy looks back at her, his eyes rounding in hope and awe, and she knows she cannot just leave them there to fend for themselves. The woman will die.

And then what will become of her son?

The woman tries to laugh, but it quickly overtakes her body, and she's coughing up something Regina is glad she cannot see, the smell itself nearly enough to knock her down.

"I've seen a doctor," she answers, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "At least the one who occasionally visits _The House of De Vil_. He told me that the only thing I could do for myself was to leave the establishment and take my bastard with me so as to not infect any of the paying customers and start an outbreak."

Ah—the brothel. That explains a lot, unfortunately.

"There has to be another physician around," Regina tries, but the woman raises her hand and waves away the suggestion.

"I'm dying," she murmurs. "I won't last the night, and we both know it."

Somehow the stench of the alley melts away as the child's form sags into Regina's legs, and she holds the boy upright, her hand automatically brushing through his ragged curls.

"Don't say that, Mama," he whimpers before burying his face in his hands. But he doesn't protest further, making Regina wonder just how much death he has seen in his short life.

"It's true, Roland," she breathes, the labored noises she makes to simply draw breath enough to make Regina cringe. "You must accept this and go on. Be my brave boy, alright?"

He's nodding and shaking his head at the same time, and Regina turns his wet face into her tunic, letting his tears soak her clothes, her heart nearly frozen at the gravity of this situation.

"You said you want to help?"

Regina can't remember if she did or not, but she can't say no to this woman and her son, not here, not now.

"Of course," she answers. "What can I do?"

The woman sits forward, coughing until she can't breathe. She finally stops and pulls a pendant off of her neck, extending it towards Regina with a trembling arm.

"Take this," she wheezes, dangling it insistently. "Take this, and take my son."

Her hand clasps over the chain just as the bulk of her request hits Regina squarely in the chest.

"I—your son?"

"No, Mama, no," the boys sobs, and he runs to her, throwing small arms around her neck. They're both crying now, mother and child, and tears prick her own eyes, the measure of just how grave a situation she's stumbled into nearly making her legs buckle. "I'm gonna stay with you. You're gonna be ok. Promise."

"No, Roland," she murmurs, pulling his arms away from her, pushing the boy in Regina's direction. "I won't be. You need to go with this nice lady. She'll take care of you." She coughs again before she stares directly back at Regina.

"Won't you?"

He's looking up at her, clearly distraught and terrified, and Regina tries her best to swallow, the pendant in one hand, the boy's shoulder in the other. She nods, she's not certain what prompts it, but she does, and then the woman smiles, looking younger as if the weight of the world has been lifted from her chest.

"I knew you would," she murmurs, leaning back into the wall. "I knew it the minute I saw your face." She pauses to cough again before inhaling painfully. "You're my savior."

She's no savior, she knows it, but no sound comes out of her mouth as the child continues to sob into her clothing.

"Take care of my boy," the woman manages, pointing directly at Regina. "His future is in your hands."

Her eyes close then, and Regina's widen, the boy Roland clutching her legs with the strength of a child twice his age. She holds him to her instinctively, the chain now woven through her fingers as the woman breathes her last.

What is she supposed to do now?

Then there's a noise coming from the main street, and she sweeps Roland up against her chest, moving them back into the shadows and stench where neither the sheriff's men nor Black Guards would dare to venture.

"Shhhh," she breathes into his hair, hugging knots and tangles, muffling his sobs into her shoulder. "Remember what your mother said, Roland. It's time to be brave. Can you do that for me?"

He draws back and looks at her, nodding in a pitiful attempt to obey his mother's last wishes.

"I'm Regina," she whispers. "And if I get caught by the sheriff, I'll be in a lot of trouble. Do you understand?"

Whether he does or not, she doesn't know, but he nods all the same, and Regina realizes that this boy has spent his entire life on the wrong side of the law. After all, the children of whores aren't usually looked upon as worthy of the crown's protection.

"I need you to be quiet and walk away with me," she continues, gazing towards the alley's opening before returning her eyes to his. "Can you do that?"

He nods in earnest this time, and she smoothes the hair away from his forehead, smiling back at him in the dim light, hating that a child so young has already lost so much.

"Come on then," she instructs, tugging them both up on their feet and turning to slide out of one alley and into another. But Roland pauses, looking back at his mother, frozen in place for a moment that pierces Regina's heart.

"You'll take care of me?"

She closes her eyes and breathes in the stench, clasping his little hand within her own. How the hell is she supposed to take care of a little boy when she's already on the run from the queen?

"I'll take care of you," she promises, feeling his fingers latch into hers, knowing somehow it is a promise she must keep, one that will consume her life from this point on, one that will take precedence over her own survival.

"Just like Mama said," he whispers, and her heart flutters in her ribs. They look at each other in silence before the sound of barking dogs cuts into their reverie.

"Let's go," Regina instructs, maneuvering them out of the alley slowly, leaving death behind for the promises of life and freedom.


	2. Chapter 2

He follows her at a distance once they're outside of the village, staying close enough to keep up but far enough away so he can make a run for it if he feels threatened. That's what she assumes, anyway, and she can't blame him for it. After all, he's known her for all of a couple of hours, and he's been forced to trust her—a bandit, a thief, simply because his mother had told him to do so.

His mother, a whore, who had died in an alley before her son's very eyes.

"Are you alright back there?"

She stops and waits for him to catch up, but he remains three paces behind her, staring back at her in the moonlight, nodding unconvincingly. He's so small, too small to have seen all that he has in his short life, but then again, she'd grown up the same way—alone, without parents, without any guarantees of a bed or food. There's no way she can knowingly let this little fellow go hungry or leave him wondering where he's going to sleep at night. She can't bring his mother back, can't right all the wrongs he's already suffered, but she can make sure he has food and shelter. She can teach him to steal so he can get by on his own without starving or getting caught.

And she can make certain he doesn't grow up alone.

She moves towards him and kneels down, reaching out slowly to take his hand. She refuses to force him to touch her, and he stares at her outstretched arm, looking back and forth from her palm to her face.

"You know, Roland," she begins. "I grew up without a mother, too."

"You did?"

He gazes up at her then, the slight quiver of his chin nearly breaking her in half.

"I did," she continues, feeling his hand slide into her own. His skin is cold, his bones easily felt, and she is struck again by the realization of just how small he is, her heart creasing painfully under the weight of such knowledge. They begin to move forward, and she guides them carefully across the forest floor, picking him up once to help him over a particularly steep rock face. He buries his head in her shoulder, almost as if he's afraid to look down, and she notices that he seems to like sniffing her hair.

How different her hair must smell from his mothers.

"What happened to your mama?"

She sets him down gently, seeing in his eyes both curiosity and the need to forge some sort of connection with her. Regina takes his hand again, pausing to let him gaze in wonder at a snow owl before she guides him down an embankment to her small abode. No one is watching them, at least she's almost certain no one is, and she sighs in relief as she ushers him inside, her muscles unwinding at the familiarity of home. She yanks off her glove with her teeth, watching with amusement as her young protégé attempts the same maneuver with limited success.

"I'm not sure, exactly," she shrugs, going to the table to pour them both a small glass of water from the pitcher. "She gave me away when I was born."

Small brows scrunch in her direction, but she holds out the cup for him, one he accepts before moving back into the corner he seems to have claimed as his.

"You mean you never even saw her?"

"No," she answers, exhaling audibly before taking a much-needed drink.

"That's sad," Roland states.

"So is what happened to your mother."

He stares back at her, wide-eyed and uncertain. Then his stomach growls loud enough for her to hear across the room, and she curses under her breath, wishing she had more than stale bread and a two day old persimmon to offer him. He doesn't seem to mind, however, as he practically snatches the bread from her outstretched arm and tears into it without anything to wash it down.

He's starving.

She tries to swallow back a stubborn wave of tears, remembering stretches of days when she'd experienced the same thing as a child, and she curses Madame De Vil, knowing without a doubt that the woman spares absolutely no expense when it comes to taking care of herself or her clients. Yet she'd let an innocent child starve under her own roof, the child of one of the women who kept her in the lifestyle to which she'd become accustomed.

Bitch.

Regina won't let hunger take charge of either of them again, not as long as she lives and breathes and has charge of her mental and physical facilities. She'll steal what's needed to keep food on her table and milk in his belly, damn it, and she'll make certain the life he has here in the forest with her is better than the existence he was forced to endure at the brothel.

But there he had his mother. She knows she's a poor substitute.

She greedily gulps her water, the sensation of cool moisture alleviating the sandy texture of her throat the closest thing to heaven she'll probably ever experience. She wipes her chin with her sleeve, setting her cup down again, noting that Roland doesn't reach for his own cup until all of his bread is gone, almost as if he's afraid that if he stops eating, he'll lose what food he has. Crumbs dot his ragged shirt, and it's then she spies the large hole in his shoe as well as the streaks of dirt and grime that cling to him like tar.

A bath is a must tomorrow. She hopes the child doesn't have lice.

He finally drinks, his breath coming in hic-cups, and she prays he won't be sick after gorging himself on bread and water on such a traumatic night. But then he lowers himself to the dirt floor and stretches out without a word. He's shutting down, she's sees it, recognizes it, has done the same more times than she can count, and she understands with a pang of regret that there is nothing she can do for him at this moment other than give him some space.

"I don't want to talk anymore," he mutters.

"Alright," she says with a shrug. He then scrunches his arms under his head, a poor replacement for a pillow.

"You don't have to sleep on the floor," she states as she removes her belt, vest and boots. "My bed isn't very big, but then neither are you."

She slides under a worn blanket, gesturing to the open space beside her in a quiet invitation. Roland eyes her warily, and she suddenly wonders if the boy has ever slept in a bed. Of course, he'd been raised at _The House of De Vil_ , and it strikes her that his notion of what happens in a bed probably has nothing at all to do with sleeping. Poor kid.

He stays in his corner and closes his eyes. She gets up and lays a small blanket on top of him, and she stares down at long dark lashes feathering grimy cheeks, nearly losing her breath as the reality of what she's undertaken hits her all at once.

She barely sleeps that night.

The trek to the stream is made in silence the next morning, but he follows her nonetheless, straight to the water's edge. She strips down to an oversized tunic, helping him out of his clothes until he wears nothing but his tattered breeches. She steps into the water and offers him her hand, but he stares at her hard, letting her know without a doubt that he's never done this before.

"Don't be afraid," she instructs with a small smile. "The water is a little cold, but getting clean feels wonderful."

He bites his lower lip, revealing dimples that could melt a glacier.

"I won't let you drown, Roland," she promises. "You can trust me."

She wonders if he's ever trusted anyone besides his mother. Yet he bravely takes her hand, albeit with some hesitation, and followers her into the stream, sucking in air as his little body submerges itself in the cool water.

"It gets warmer," she tells him with a flick of her eyebrows. His expression tells her that he doesn't believe her for a second.

What a brave little boy, she thinks.

They stretch out on blankets afterwards, reveling in the sun's warmth, stuffing their bellies with berries and mushrooms they'd picked along the way, sucking the sweet nectar from honeysuckle blossoms on to their tongues. He still doesn't speak, but he curls into her side, sundried curls brushing up against her cheek, the marked scratches on his limbs all the more pronounced when canvased on clean skin, and he yawns as only children can, his dimples worming their way into her heart.

He's asleep within seconds.

She weeps for him without a sound.

Days pass, and they create an odd sort of routine, one built of silence and shared understanding, one forged out of mutual respect of boundaries and pain. He doesn't talk, she doesn't press, but they walk and forage, and she lets him climb to the lowest branch of a tree one afternoon so he can peek into a nest built in the crook.

"Robins," she explains as he stares wide-eyed at this hidden treasure. "Maybe you can help keep watch over their nest."

He nods in eager acceptance of his new duty.

She teaches him to build and set traps, and she spies his first true smile when he sees the rabbit they've snared for their dinner one unseasonably cool evening.

"I did that," he marvels, and she beams back at him, laughing at the beautiful sound of his voice.

"Yes, Roland," she affirms. "You did that."

He pauses and stares up at her quizzically.

"Can you teach me how to shoot a bow and arrow?" he asks her, swallowing hard. "Like you do?"

"I can," she answers, captivated by the smile that creeps into his eyes. "But first we'll need to make you a bow."

"My own bow," he whispers, allowing her to take his hand as they search for materials.

He doesn't speak again until bedtime.

"I'm cold, Gina."

She's plaiting her hair and turns to see him on his little patch of floor, huddled in his blanket she'd given him their first night together. His cheeks have more color, she notes, and he's not boney anymore. Still thin, but more lanky than sickly, and her heart warms to see it. She then stands and moves to her bed, picking up her warmest quilt and laying it on top of him, grinning at the way it dwarfs his small frame. He touches it with near reverence, staring back at her in disbelief.

"What will you use?" he questions, clutching the blanket to his chest.

"I'll be fine," she states with a flick of her wrist, taking up her braid again as she moves to her bed and sits. They gaze at each other from across the room, and he's mulling something over, his little brow creased in thought.

"Goodnight, Roland," she whispers before stretching out on her straw mattress, amplified by whatever feathers she could find. There is quiet for nearly a minute before the shuffling of feet is heard across her floor. She knows he's standing by the bed, and she pops her eyes open to look up at him, touching the space beside her again in invitation. His eyes tear up then, and he crawls in beside her, blanket and all, pressing himself into her chest as sobs finally come. She holds him close, breathing into his hair that now smells like moss and bark, nearly breaking open as he clutches her tunic with little fists and cries into her breasts.

"I miss her," he utters, and she nods, placing a kiss on his forehead.

"I know," she replies, and he holds her even tighter. Sobs turn to gasps as tears begin to abate, and his body goes slack against her own, spent and warm now huddled into her in the dark. His breathing finally steadies, and she adjusts the quilt over both of them, her heart both full and hurting in a manner she's never known. _So this is motherhood_ , she muses, instantly berating herself for entertaining such thoughts over a child who has so recently lost his real mama. She's not a mother, she'll never be a mother, she's just been thrust into this situation simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now she has this little person with her, this little boy who eats her food, follows her around, and fills her with more happiness and contentment than she's ever known in her life.

Her fingers trace the outline of his pendant, the one he refuses to take off, the one given to him by his mother before she died, and she feels the outline of a lion pressing against the pad of her finger. _His mother's family_ , perhaps, _or maybe a trinket from his father_ she muses before removing her hand with a sigh, thinking it was probably something his mother stole from a client in hopes of giving her son a future. But what future he has now lies solely with her, a responsibility that overwhelms her in more ways than she can count.

He snuggles up against her, and she buries her fingers in his hair, kissing his temple as she stares up at the ceiling. A small hand reaches around her, and she closes her eyes, thinking of brown eyes and black curls and dimples that will mark her forever. Then he stirs slightly, muttering words she can't make out as his toes brush against her calves.

"I'm here, Roland," she assures him as he relaxes into her once more.

"Mama," he mutters, leaving her spellbound and speechless as night creeps over them in silence.


End file.
